Christmas: the most wonderful time of the year! During this cheerful season celebrating the birth of Christ, our Creative team loves making the moment memorable. Everything about Christmas 2018—from social media to services and mailers to the foyer install—reflected Isaiah 9:6:

“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And He will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace...”

Our goal is always to design memorable spaces for those who come to our Candlelight services. With a strong direction, willing staff team, and mighty volunteers, our foyers were transformed into a winter wonderland. One of our biggest successes was the Christmas villages. These were an interior environments element that represented a warm Christmas city building front with a mediterranean twist.

Dreaming and DesigningWe started off brainstorming many ideas and finally landed on a few install pieces: the village was supplemented with white shoe box trees, a fireplace scene, a centered Christmas tree, garland, and small features to finish off the room.

Once we landed on these elements, we moved on to the design phase by creating general rough sketches on paper to represent our ideas. Once we had a look and general idea to go along with our example photos, we brought in the experts to help guide us in finding what materials would be needed to accomplish such an undertaking.

Building

The vision was to create a village that was simplistic yet have specific details. Starting out we knew we wanted to have translucent windows so we could backlight the buildings. We also knew we wanted a monochromatic look. This added a pleasing aesthetic aspect that created a clean and uniform look. The village was constructed out of several materials:

Main frame

2” Pink Foam

Glue

We used Titebond Power Grab.

PrimerWe used: Kilz primer

Non-oil based paint

We used: Sherwin Williams pure white in eggshell

Balsa wood

Cinder blocks

Features

Cotton

Green cypress tree

Straight pins

Icicle Christmas ornaments

Adhesive vinyl

Tape

Caulk

Hallway night lights

Paper for wreaths

Vellum or diffusion paper

Accent pieces

We used: large nutcrackers from previous Christmas installs

Supplies

Hot glue and guns

Box cutters

Craft straight razor blades

Paint brushes

Paint rollers

Paint sprayers

Construction Process

Once we gathered our materials together, we started the building process offsite in a large shop with plenty of space to move. All together, one village took up a space of approximately 25’x6’x16’.

Step 1: Create a SketchUp virtual version so that we could properly size each building and easily add features.

Making connections with others in the Church creative world is so important to our team! We highly value teaching what we have learned through the years and learning from what others in this world are doing. Hosting roundtables builds friendships among creatives and helps us all be better together.

1. The House Where it All Began - Conway, Arkansas

Maybe one of the most powerful videos we’ve ever gotten to film is the one we filmed with our Founding Pastor in the house his family purchased when they first moved to Arkansas to plant New Life Church. The Bezet’s have since moved out, but kept a good relationship with the current owners and we were able to film content for our vision series here. The magic of this location wasn’t so much in the location itself as it was nostalgia and history that it evoked. It’s not always about the look of the location, sometimes it’s just the emotion connected to a place that can come through.

2. Bonneville Salt Flats- Nevada

A desolate landscape and excruciating heat, what’s not to love about shooting in those elements?! The parched salt flats was just the right setting for the empty feeling we wanted to communicate as we filmed Ps Rick’s message on The Social Network for our Big Screen series.

3. Rooftop with Cityscapes- Downtown Little Rock, Arkansas

One of our campuses is nestled into downtown Little Rock. The rooftop allows us to have a (mostly) controlled set while allowing us to get urban views of our capital city. The second floor of this building is still under demolition and renovation, so we’re able to make use of the open space and manipulate it as needed. So far we’ve filmed here for our Collide Student conference and Woman conference, as well as a few smaller scale projects such as a worship video and testimony videos.

4. Alamosa, Colorado

This quiet little area is home to some 750 feet tall sand dunes. We loved filming here for Easter 2018. The vast mounds of sand contrasted against snow capped mountains really helped show off the beauty and greatness of creation. You can check out how we used shots of this location here.

5. Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania

Sometimes we can’t recreate a scene to closely match the set of films we highlight during Big Screen, and so we go with a set that is inspired by the film instead of trying to mirror it. But for this shoot we were able to easily visit the actual town the movie Groundhog Day was made in and use recognizable areas for filming! We loved visiting this charming and quirky little town.

6. Glacier National Park - Montana

We used this for our Big Screen series as well as content for other projects. Whenever we find a good location and the schedule margin, we like to make sure we get extra content to build up our footage bank. Clearly this location offered a wide array of content for us and we loved every bit of it.

7. Hendrix College, Greene Chapel- Conway, Arkansas

You don’t always have to travel to find a good location. This one is just a few miles from our offices, nestled in the Hendrix campus. We loved the character and quiet beauty of this little 1950’s chapel. Anytime we can find a way to stay local and partner with people in our community for sets, we do! This location was the setting where we filmed part of our vision series for 2018. We chose it because we wanted a nostalgic look to help remember our history as we talked about all that was ahead.

8. Everywhere in Oklahoma/New Mexico

For our Easter services video in 2018, we chose to make a multi location video. We selected some key locations that were well researched (Gloss Mountain State Park, the Wichita Mtns, etc.) and planned out lodging based on those areas. Once our team was on the road we divided them into two small film crews and left margin in the schedule for finding additional sites to film throughout their trip. We were able to cover close to 20 different sites all together for this project throughout five different states.

9. Dreamland Ballroom - Little Rock, Arkansas

Dreamland was originally opened in 1918. It served as a clubhouse, house the USO during war times, and in the years following WWII welcomed iconic performers like Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong. This space has a unique structure and such a rich history that makes it an honor to film in! We’ve used this location for Easter Services and our Big Screen series. You can check out the project we filmed for Easter Services here.

10. Valley of Fire - Nevada

What we liked here: when you’re trying to film something on planet Earth that reflects the solitude of being crashed in Mars, the Nevada wilds are a pretty good option. All of the red rock and desolate terrain really helped us visually convey the message of how lonely it can be for someone who is lost or feels alone in the world. The vibrant color and contrast of blue skies with the red rocks and sand made this location absolutely gorgeous. Some of the issues we faced here have also prepared us better for shoots now. Helicopters flew over, hikers voices (though they were far from our actual set) were reverberating off of rocks and halted production for a while, at one point it even began raining on us! Now we go the extra mile to be prepared for anything on our sets and remind our crew to always be patient and wait out difficult elements, because you never know when it’s going to rain in the desert. You can check out a clip from this shoot here.

One of the most common questions that I get from photographers, specifically people who shoot in a modern church setting, is about how I take photos in low light. Today I’d like to address that a little and share some things that I’ve learned shooting in dark rooms constantly for the last several years. Most of this post will concentrate on getting shots of people in your auditorium/sanctuary because that seems to be the most difficult. (Photos of a well-lit stage don’t seem to give people much trouble.)

Set Change is an event that our team looks forward to every year. Our goal is to help set a specific mood and create an atmosphere pleasing to everyone. We want to be current and culturally relevant without being too flashy or distracting. This balance takes careful planning and vision.

“I bet, if you’ll be honest, you have a birthday every year. What does this mean? It means every year, the church gets older with the average age unless you have vision to reach younger people.“ — Pastor Rick Bezet

Our lead pastor, Rick Bezet, shared this during the opening session of our first-ever NLC Creative Camp. He was even bold enough to say that he doesn’t like any part of our church where young people are not involved — WOW. I love this! Talk about placing a mantle of leadership on these students right off the bat.

So this is about writing a song. Songwriting is what I’ve done for years. As with all things gifted by God to fallible humans like me, I’ve had a rocky relationship with the gift. First I loved it innocently like a kid. “I wrote a song! Thanks, God!” Then I loved it clingingly, like an idol. “MY precious,” (Gollem voice). Then I had it taken away lovingly by the Lord. “But my identity was wrapped up in that, God!” Then he lovingly returned it to my now humbled heart. “I wrote a song! Thanks, God!” I honestly do my best to hold it with an open hand before Him. Some days are better than others, of course.

How does anyone go about writing on such a topic? There are many successful teachings on team building. I’ll warn you that we have not arrived, but we can give you insight on what has helped us. May they help someone, including me as I humbly brave the task of leading a creative team.